Handkerchief
Boston Chemical Printing Company
1830–35 · linen · Costume Institute
The text of the poem "Mary Dow" was written by Hannah Flagg Gould. In 1830, the Boston Chemical Printing Company published a "chapbook" style version of the Gould poem that is printed on this handkerchief. Other poems by Gould were also printed on similar handkerchiefs. A version of this poem (lines 1-32 and 45-52) appeared in the 1837 "McGuffey's Third Eclectic Reader," the third volume of a popular educational book series for children. Both poems, "The Little Beggar Girl" and "Mary Dow," deal with the social and moral issues surrounding the rich and the poor.
- Artist
- Boston Chemical Printing Company
- Date
- 1830–35
- Medium
- linen
- Culture
- American
- Department
- Costume Institute
- Credit line
- Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of the Monroe and Estelle Hewlett Collection, 1952
